


The Lady Bird and the Winged Wolf

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Jonsa Drabble Fest, Post-Resurrection Jon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24121669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: There was something strangely familiar about all this, something that rang a bell from a story she heard long ago, about a knight with a laughing tree shield and a secret concealed by armor, a story Sansa had never paid much attention in her younger years as it lacked her favorite elements of handsome princes and fancy castles and pretty dresses.And there was something familiar, too, in another way that seemed to resonate in her bones, something that seemed to draw her in, about this knight who bore a white shield with a device of a blue winter rose and wielded a sword of Valyrian steel.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Sansa Stark
Comments: 137
Kudos: 195
Collections: Jon x Sansa Drabble





	1. Linger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really enjoyed writing a series of interconnected drabbles for the last event like this, so I chose to go with a similar idea here!

There was something strangely familiar about all this, something that rang a bell from a story she heard long ago, about a knight with a laughing tree shield and a secret concealed by armor, a story Sansa had never paid much attention in her younger years as it lacked her favorite elements of handsome princes and fancy castles and pretty dresses. 

And there was something familiar, too, in another way that seemed to resonate in her bones, something that seemed to draw her in, about this knight who bore a white shield with a device of a blue winter rose and wielded a sword of Valyrian steel. They said he hailed from the windswept islands of the Bite, this man who never removed his helm, while others whispered he was a wildling come over the Wall based on his fighting ways, or more still suggested he hailed from Essos, an exile from a failed sellsword company. 

Even if he was unconventional, no one could say he was unfair, and Sansa found herself riveted as all the rest when he took to the lists. She was certain she knew no one of any of those sorts, but there was something recognizable all the same in the way he rode, how he dismissed his defeated opponents with honor, the strength and bravery he charged down the lane with tilt after tilt. 

And now, as she followed him outside while the feast continued back inside the great hall at the Gates of the Moon, the realization struck her. 

His hair had grown long and he wore it tied back, his beard had thickened, and he was taller and well-built, but when he turned and she caught his eye, there was no mistaking that grey. She knew why he chose to seat himself far from the dais, why he had avoided her eye all evening—there would be no way Littlefinger could miss the face of Ned Stark in his hall, or close enough.

“Jon.” 

He gave a nod but spoke no words. Instead he drew his eyes from the black of her hair to the chain of the necklace she wore about her neck to the mockingbirds embroidered on her dress.

“Jon, you’re not…” Her voice faltered at the intensity of his expression, a darkness there that was dangerous, different, but she was not afraid. “Are you a knight now?” 

He smirked. “No. But neither are half those who sit below the salt.”

“Do you intend to serve in the Brotherhood of the Winged Knights? Or you merely hope for the gold?” 

“No. Neither.” 

“Then why…” 

“For you, Sansa,” he said, with a roll of his eyes as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. 

Revelers spilled out of the hall, music at their backs, seeking the privacy of the night. Myranda Royce came among them, a bevy of handsome suitors at her side, most of them as commonplace as Harrold Hardyng and his brothers who’d been lost when they’d been fool enough to wage war against the mountain clans.

“Alayne!” 

Reluctant, Sansa turned and left Jon there on the terrace, but she would not be forgetting any time soon the way she felt his gaze linger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please excuse the 37 words over the limit... I swear it will even out by the end!


	2. Stolen

Sansa woke with a gasp. 

Her senses ran ahead of her conscious awareness, the sound of boots scraping on stone and the whisper of something besides the wind stirring her, and then she remembered the rest—the tourney, laughter from the feast lasting long into the night, _Jon…_

Her mind sorted it for her soon enough, though, and she reached for the candle on her nightstand. Its dim light illuminated Jon himself scrambling over the ledge and dressed in his blacks of the Night’s Watch. 

“Jon! What are you doing?” she hissed. 

“Stealing you,” he said simply.

Sansa glanced back and forth between Jon, cloak fluttering and sword at his hip, and the shutters thrown wide to the darkness beyond, an open door to a caged bird. “Why did you—how did you—?”

“Do you think it was so hard to scale a tower when I’ve climbed the Wall?” he said, smirking. “It was nothing compared to that.” 

“You— _what?_ ” she asked. She had a thousand questions, but there would be time later for that. 

She thanked the gods—which ones, she didn’t know anymore—that they were on the floor of the valley at the Gates of the Moon rather than atop the Eyrie, but the determined look on Jon’s face told her they would have made it out either way, whether it was through the stone window in her tower looking up at the mountain followed by a short drop to the ground or down a spiral of seemingly impossible heights to the high road and past Sky and Snow and Stone. 

“Get your things, Alayne,” he said. “And that’s the last time I’ll ever use that bloody name.”


	3. Legends and Beyond the Wall

Jon was full of strange stories from the rest of the realm, and he shared them as they picked their way through the forest south of the Mountains of the Moon, avoiding any paths that led to the high road or the king’s road. To Sansa’s ears, they sounded more like legends from the fables of Old Nan than any approximation of the truth, but they served as an ample distraction while they hastened to stay ahead of any men who may have been sent to follow. 

He told her first of how he fled from the Wall to White Harbor to Gulltown, where he intended to find a ship to Dorne or Essos or the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai, he hadn’t cared where as long as it was far from here. There he overheard of the tournament, young Lord Arryn’s request for the best in the land to come bolster his guard, and he stole the invitation from a drunken knight boasting of it after he’d slipped into a stupor and slumped over in an inn, evidently not fit to serve. 

Jon had gotten the idea from Mance, Mance Rayder, King Beyond the Wall, of the wildlings—or the free folk, as he called them now, as though he was one of their own. Mance been sent to snatch Arya from Winterfell, but he’d been caught, and she’d been lost again. Those who continued to keep the faith claimed she escaped, but those who better knew the Boltons knew better. 

And then the story turned stranger still, as he spoke of creatures of ice, dead men risen, the sweeping cold they brought with them, and the frozen hell they wrought as they attempted to find their way south around the Wall. 

By the time darkness began to fall and they set up a camp for the night deep under the cover of the pines, Jon’s voice slowed, but Sansa’s interest did not fade. She pressed him, and only then did he tell her of the Night’s Watch and his short-lived time as Lord Commander, of the Red Witch and daggers in the dark, of talking to a tree in the woods beyond the Wall and seeing the world through Ghost’s eyes, and how that was when he knew he’d been wrong, that he had searching for the wrong sister in the wrong place all this time. 

Sansa wouldn’t have believed him, except then Jon opened his shirt, unlacing the tunic and pulling apart the fabric to show her the expanse of his skin, the beat of his heart as unmistakable as her own and his skin as warm as the small, smokey fire they dared to light. He took her hand in his and brought it to touch the scars, letting her run fingertips over the indents and the rough skin marring his chest and abdomen, standing stark still as she poked into the healed wounds while he didn’t so much as flinch. 

She frowned. “So we’re going south, not to the North.” 

“Didn’t you always wish to go south with a prince?” His smirk reappeared. 

She rolled her eyes. “Ages ago.”

“Well,” he began, and then Jon told her the most unbelievable tale of all.


	4. Hidden and True

Sansa rode behind Jon, attempting to discern any of his Targaryen features and failing. They had crossed the Trident this morning, and they’d been able to quicken their pace now over the flat plains and gentle hills of the Riverlands, giving her time to think of all he’d told her. The true heir to the Seven Kingdoms… it seemed absurd every time her mind came ‘round to it again. 

He’d always looked the most Stark, like Arya, like their— _her_ —father, none of the fair coloring for which the Targaryens had been famed showing through. His hair was dark as pitch, his eyes grey rather than amethyst, and his hand bore a scar from where he’d burnt it defending his Lord Commander from an attack from these so-called risen dead. That was just as well, though, since she’d had enough of bright eyed, golden haired, honey tongued pricks for a lifetime. 

_Cousin._ The thought stirred something strange in her now that she knew the truth. He was different in some other way too, something enigmatic and enticing that she couldn’t help but be fascinated by. Maybe that was what happened when you discovered you had dragon blood, that if the beasts still lived you would have scarce on nothing to fear. Or maybe death instead had gifted him that quality, a fearlessness it emboldened with once it showed you that this was the life to cherish and enjoy, and that there was nothing beyond. 

Or perhaps it was only her, and she was the one who had changed, she was the one who saw him in another light now, the same way she’d come to see so many others—Joffrey, Cersei, Petyr, even her father. He had staked his reputation on his honor, and yet he had hidden Jon all this time, trading it for a lie told to save Jon’s life just as Alayne had been a ruse to protect hers. 

The ruins of Harrenhal rose out of the mists as evening began to set. It was a wreck of a place, empty and eerie, but its walls could tell of lavish feasts and mysterious knights, stolen maidens and suitors spurned.

Jon spurred his horse on with hardly a second glance, and Sansa followed, not eager to spend the night in the shadows of the crumbling towers and the ghosts of their blighted past. 

Perhaps this time it was not possible to start a war while one already raged. This time, the enemy who pursued was not a stag with a warhammer, but rather a mockingbird with the weapons of a treacherous tongue and a keen ear, and now instead of fire, ice threatened. 

It was history repeating, she thought, with no lesson learned.


	5. Winterfell

Jon had taken as much food and drink as he dared from the Gates of the Moon, and Sansa sat with the wineskin tonight, sipping until she no longer worried that Littlefinger’s men followed in pursuit or that someone might take notice of a maid called Sansa taking refuge somewhere in the woods. 

The last few days brought them somewhere south of the Crownlands and far west of King’s Landing to the lands blurring the line between the Reach and the Stormlands, and she very much doubted the farmers tending their fields all the way out here had ever so much as heard of Ned Stark’s wanted daughter or his supposed bastard son. 

Jon had chosen this spot well, precisely because a hot spring bubbled not far from where they tied their horses for the night. After the long journey south, such an amenity was a blessing, and when the wineskin ran dry, Sansa stripped down to her shift. “Are you not joining?” 

“I’ll bathe after,” Jon said. For all his boldness before, he appeared apprehensive for the first time, even though she had reassured him the sight of his scars didn’t offend her in the slightest. 

“No need to wait,” she said. “Remember how Old Nan would bathe us as children?”

“That was… different,” Jon said. “You’re… you’re a lady now.” 

“I’ve always been a lady,” Sansa said. “So good of you to notice.” 

Jon relented though once she sank into the water, moaning with how good it felt on her sore muscles. 

“This reminds me of Winterfell,” she said, thinking of the hot pools in the godswood around which they’d played many a game of monsters and maidens. 

He grinned, and that was all it took for them to be swept away with their memories, talking of Robb and Theon trying to best each other at swords, Arya slipping away from her lessons and Rickon similarly testing Lady Catelyn’s patience, sweet Bran practicing jousting to prepare for his dream of being a knight. 

Sansa retrieved a bar of soap she’d packed amongst her things, and as they spoke, she ran it through her hair again and again until the water started to blacken. The dye slipped from her hair, turning from mahogany to chestnut to auburn to copper, until even in the dim light of the moon it shone once again the color of weirwood leaves. 

By the time the water ran clear again, their talk turned to the time he had scared her in the crypts, covered in flour from the kitchens, appearing as an apparition, one of the old Kings of Winter come back to life. Sansa laughed about it now, now that she knew there were terrors far more threatening in this world. 

She swam closer to him, so close she could see the grey of his eyes and the glint in them, too. “I don’t think you can frighten me anymore.” 

“No?” He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a challenge, my lady?”


	6. Spring (Two Ways)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this prompt was definitely supposed to be referencing the season of spring, but I couldn't resist using it in another way as well!

His kiss hadn’t frightened her. Not in the least. 

She didn’t know what she had expected—for it to be strange, shameful, a disappointment after all her musings about such, but she had certainly not anticipated it would feel this satisfying, this _right._

Many a man may have desired her, yet Sansa had never been kissed quite like this, Jon’s kisses so much better than Petyr’s cool pecks, Harry’s demanding ones, or the reek of duty on those of Tyrion. This she _wanted,_ and she wanted more than that, too. She could feel Jon wanting as well, brushing hard against her legs, and that prospect didn’t scare her either. 

She shifted beneath the water of the spring until she sat across his lap, her body pressing up against nearly all of him. Jon was somehow even hotter still, warmer than the water itself, as though the fire the Red Woman had used to bring him back continued to burn within, or maybe it was his dragon blood simmering beneath his skin, that part of him so unlike her. 

The spring air was chilly, especially as she rose up out of the water, even as she wondered if they had received more than a sprinkling of snow this far south. This was nothing compared to the winter they’d been assailed by further north over the past few years, but even in the harshest throes of that she thought she would have felt little at the moment, given the rising steam and the warmth of Jon wrapped around her. 

It was pleasant though, the breeze cooling her feverish skin and contrasting with Jon’s scorching touch, and she arched her back as his hands slid from her hips to her ribs to her breasts. She explored him just the same, hands in his hair, fingertips trailing over the scar across his eye and down through his coarse beard, and lower still until she slipped them down the planes of his chest and then bracketed her arms around his broad shoulders. She moved slow and tentative now, gently tilting her hips until they bumped up against his, and he groaned. 

The sound did things to her, things she never thought she’d feel again, not after so many years of men seeking her solely for her name and her claim, for her beauty and her body, and desire washed over her, bubbling up inside of her like the flow of the spring. She moved again, with more intention behind her actions this time, and now she gasped as his length slid along that sweet spot between her legs. 

She felt heat pool there, and something more beginning to build, and she guided his touch down to where she was hotter still. 

He wore no smirk this time, only a look she could think to describe as awe, and instead of teasing, his words came out hoarse. “Are you certain?” 

She nodded, and this time when she sank down just right, she felt Jon take her maidenhead.


	7. Free

South, south, south they went, until they reached the marches of Dorne. Any hint of the last chills of spring faded away, and here her hair grew flaxen, blondened by the sun. 

Somewhere along the road to Dorne, when wine became cheaper than ale and more plentiful than water, they often paused their journey to indulge, stopping off at inns and taverns along the way. No one gave a second glance to the man in a simple tunic and breeches who could have been a knight or a farmhand, or the lady who accompanied him, her locks of shiny red plaited in braids or tied up with a ribbon to weather the sweltering days. 

She wondered what those they encountered thought of them when she caught their knowing glances, when Jon dared to drape an arm around her, to whisper in her ear, to press a kiss to her cheek. Who would think to look for Sansa Stark here of all places, or for the former Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, freed by his own death? Here it was easy to pretend, to be someone else, anyone else they wanted, a blacksmith and his dairymaid in search of a new life away from the stench of the cities, newlyweds on a romantic honeymoon, lovers who’d run south to escape their arranged marriages. No one asked, and nor did Sansa think anyone would care even if they told the truth of the matter. 

Beyond the reaches of Littlefinger, far off in a land that would certainly melt the very hearts of the frozen dead that threatened the North, they slowed their pace, enjoying the views from mountaintops, watching the waves roll in atop the cliffs edging along the Sea of Dorne, riding through fields of wildflowers and lounging in the heat. Even after the sun set, its warmth still lingered, so Sansa wore little more than scraps of silk when they settled into their tent for the evening, with little to separate her from Jon, and most nights ended with her wearing even less. 

Sometimes Jon spoke of where they could go, east in the hopes of finding Arya and following an inkling he could not explain, or maybe west to Oldtown and the Citadel in search of knowledge for things beyond their comprehension, or even south to the Summer Isles to see sights neither of them could imagine. In the end, though, they always concurred with one another that perhaps here they could rest for a while, until her skin became sun-kissed, calm settled in her bones, and her name felt like her own again. 

One day, she knew they would have to return North, that it would be their duty to reclaim Winterfell, to defend it against the dead, but for now, there were wars for others to fight before the ones that mattered, wars of pride and petty feuds and paltry lands that would have little significance when that time came. 

She was more than content enough to remain where the world could not touch them where they could do what they wished and be who they pleased. The abandoned keep they took up residence in was not a tower befitting of a prince or even a lady, with its decaying rafters and crumbling stone façade, but they found happiness there nonetheless. 

Sansa had always wanted a life worthy of the songs, and she could not think of any more fitting than this. Here she realized she was not to live as if in a song; no, she could be part of the song itself, that of the rightful king of the Seven Kingdoms and a secret knight, and a bird freed from her cage at last, his wild wolf wife.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! :)


End file.
